


Thirst

by ShippersList



Series: Ficlet Factory [4]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt, Hurt Eggsy, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 06:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5995330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShippersList/pseuds/ShippersList
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To Eggsy, Harry is the answer to all his prayers. Too bad life isn't that kind of a movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thirst

**Author's Note:**

> I'm feeling down. Happy Valentine's Day. Here, have [the music to go with the ficlet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52GAt_fPX1k).

As long as Eggsy can remember, he has _longed_.

It’s a burning need inside of him, calling out to be needed, wanted, worthy; a constant yearning to feel special and important as he is.

There was a time, he remembers, when he had felt like that. It was when his dad was still alive, when Mum still smiled, and when their flat didn’t smell like stale booze, lost dreams, and desperation. Back when Mum and Dad had each other, Eggsy was their pride and joy, and they looked at him with love, and Eggsy felt warm all over.

Then the man in the suit arrived. He made Mum cry, gave Eggsy an odd medal, and told him to take care of Mum.

After that, Mum stopped smiling. Oh, she tried — for a while for Eggsy, then for herself, but it was never the same.

 

* * *

 

Eggsy doesn’t know when Mum starts to lose it. Perhaps it’s with George. Or Tom. Or what-the-fucking-ever is the potato-nosed guy after Tom.

The fact is, when Dean steps into their lives, he’s like a ray of sunshine in a heap of half-rotten garbage, and for a while, Mum smiles again.

It doesn’t take long for things to go to shit and beyond. Dean isn’t the charming rough-edged mate he first appears to be, and by the time the first bruises blossom on Mum's face, Eggsy knows she’ll never smile again.

But Eggsy tries.

He tries to be a good son, a good big bro for little Daisy, and even a good stepson for Dean. He cleans and cooks, takes care of the laundry, buys food, and even beer, does his damnedest to be useful. But no matter how hard he tries, it’s never enough. On the contrary: the more he tries, the more Dean laughs, calls him a fucking fag and a pussy, and tells him what a good wife he’ll make someday.

The longing in Eggy’s chest pulses with almost palpable need. He grits his jaw, closes his eyes, and soldiers on, because stopping would mean giving up hope.

Eggsy isn’t ready for a life without hope.

He lives for the brief, drunken hugs his Mum gives him, for Daisy’s gummy smile, for the errant _”Good boy”_ praise he gets after a blowjob in a dingy alley. It’s not even nearly enough, but somehow he makes by.

Then, the man in the suit comes back.

 

* * *

 

After Harry Hart sweeps the floor of Black Prince with Dean’s goons, Eggsy knows he’ll do anything for the man.

Anything.

Harry becomes his sun and stars, the light he turns to like a weed in a shitpile, looking for guidance, approval, or even plain fucking recognition that he’s there, that he _exists._ He strives to be better, to be worthy, because Harry’s curt nod of satisfaction makes the longing flare in his chest, and it inflates like a fucking balloon, bursting through his seams until he’s filled to the brim.

And still he wants more.

The stolen moments with Harry are what keep him warm at night. That one time when Harry smiles at him, Eggsy spends the night curled around JB, smiling into his fur, feeling _whole_ for the first time in a long, long time. He ignores the eye rolls from other candidates, Roxy’s sad, understanding smile, and Merlin’s all-seeing eyes.

Eggsy is a man deprived of water, and Harry is his fountain.

Harry, of course, knows nothing about the gaping black hole of thirst in Eggsy’s core. To him, Eggsy is a young man with potential, nothing more.Eggsy knows this: he knows that him reaching out to Harry is futile, a daydream meant to be only that: a wishful dream of a boy in a world of his betters. Harry is unattainable, untouchable, unreachable; a picture of a perfect gentleman never meant for a pleb like Eggsy.

But it doesn’t stop him from hoping.

 

* * *

 

”I knew you couldn’t make it,” Arthur says with a sneer, and something inside Eggsy flinches as he gathers up JB and leaves the Kingsman Mansion.

It’s nothing compared to the desperation he feels when he sees the disappointment on Harry’s face. The longing inside him widens, cracks open like a gaping maw, trying to tear itself to the surface to stop Eggsy’s mouth let out words he never meant to say. But it’s already too late.

”I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he says desperately, as Harry’s expression turns cold.

”You should be,” Harry says, and everything inside Eggsy shrivels up and dies.

He wants to reach out, to plead and pray, _”I’m sorry, please don’t leave me, you mean everything to me, I’m lost without you,”_ but his throat betrays him and closes up, choking him with his own inane apologies.

As Harry walks away from him, Eggsy knows nothing will ever be the same again.

 

* * *

 

He sees Harry die and he screams and screams, and the longing inside him expands, consumes him inside out, and swallows him whole until there’s nothing left but the bitter taste of useless regret.

 

* * *

 

He watches Arthur die and he feels nothing.

 

* * *

 

He smiles and winks at the princess, takes one life after another, and feels nothing.

The suit might be a modern knight’s armor, but the armor on Eggsy is empty.

He decides it’s better this way.


End file.
